Anyone attempting to build the ultimate home theatre may want to hold off on whatever OLED, QLED or short-throw projector they’ve been saving for. LG is about to go hard with their latest Direct View LED (DVLED) series, the flagship of which will be a colossal 325-inch TV specifically designed for (very large) high-end homes. For comparison, the average IMAX screen is around 629-inches tall, meaning the LG 325-inch Extreme Home Cinema Screen is just over half the size – in height – of some of the largest displays in the world.
Clearly, this is LG’s way at competing on the wall-size display market with Samsung’s monstrous The Wall (292-inch) and Sony’s Crystal LED (220-inch), but Lucky GoldStar has been a bit more ambitious with scale, matched with 8K resolution and a whopping 33 million pixels. LG hasn’t released prices yet, since the largest of the series will need to be custom made. However, some websites have been reporting a price tag of around US$1.7 million (AU$2.3 million) for the 325-inch TV.
The smallest TV in the new DVLED series measures in at a comparatively tiny 81-inches, which by any other measure would be considered too big for most standard lounge rooms. The baby of the collection is being priced at around US$70,000 (AU$95,537) but is still large enough to justify the DVLED technology.
And what is DVLED technology? Well, Direct View LED TVs are essentially LCD TVs that use LED backlighting instead of the usual LCD layer. This helps maintain better control over factors such as colour gamut, brightness, contrast, and viewing angles, all while completely avoiding the risk of burn-in that is typically associated with LG’s highly-sought OLEDs. Using this arrangement also contributes to size – making LEDs small enough to work as individual subpixels is a challenge, so it kind of forces the bigger form factor.
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As explained by CNET, DVLED displays are best compared to a high-end projector, which can typically create a display of 100-inches or larger, except with a substantial difference in brightness. DVLEDs can get bright enough to use in any well-lit room, whereas with a projector you’d usually have to switch the light off before the screen comes to life.
LG will also be selling 32:9 UltraStretch aspect ratio versions of the TV so people can watch numerous video feeds side-by-side, much like Samsung’s The Wall, making it an incredibly valuable tool for keeping track of multiple live sports feeds at once. Although the standard will still be a respectable 16:9 aspect ratio, which is the most common widescreen standard today.
Dan Smith, LG Electronic’s USA vice-pres, has aptly described the flagship LG 325-inch TV as the “supercar of home display technologies” and explained that it is “offering hand-constructed quality and performance that appeals to those with luxury lifestyles who want something that is not only immersive but also highly exclusive.”
As impressive as the godly size, and peak brightness, is, there are some downsides to the DVLED series and its flagship. While there’s support for HDR10, none of them will be able to use Dolby Vision or HDR10+, which are the two new gold-standard HDR formations out right now. The 325-incher will also be an absolute fiend when it comes to energy, with the 8K resolution reportedly sucking up 16,560 watts and producing 56,593 BTUs per hour.
The LG DVLED Extreme Home Cinema Display technology has been rated to last 100,000 hours before dipping down to half-life, which works out to around 10 years of pristine super-sized viewing. By that time, we’re willing to bet TVs will probably triple that size.
We do know that Samsung is planning on introducing an even bigger TV sometime in the near future, with Digital Trends reporting that The Wall is being adapted to a 583-inch size with 8K resolution. That’ll be for the business market though, whereas the LG 325-inch TV seems pointed straight at mansion owners, and specifically people with more than one home to play around with. LG is offering each Extreme Home Cinema Display with its own set of flight cases, in case owners want to move their 325-inch TV from mansion to mansion.
Any brave soul who wants to tackle this digital beast can order the LG 325-inch TV through a custom installation dealer program from this week. You’ll have to hit up LG directly, you won’t be seeing this bad boy on display at JB Hi-Fi anytime soon.
Although if the 325-inch is a bit too much for you, the LG DVLED series still has plenty of options. In total, there are 30 size and shape options, ranging from 2K to 8K resolutions.
